General Question

Why is my external drive not being recognized by my computer?

The external drive itself is fine, as well as, my computer. Neither have suffered any damage or have any viruses.
The external drive is pretty much full and I don’t know if that has anything to do with it.
Details:
My external is a Western Digital about 3 years old. It has 160 gigabytes. The model number is WD16001032.
I have Windows Vista Home Premium. My computer is an ACER desktop purchased about 2 years ago.

The thing that I’m having a problem with is that my computer won’t recognize it. It says it’s working properly and that I can safely remove it. But, I cannot get my computer to recognize it. I have an old Dell laptop from 2001 and it recognizes it, but will not open it because it cannot open up a high speed external device. This is a recent occurance and I got some files that I need to get off of it.

I have two WD external drives sitting on my shelf. Same exact problem. I was never able to get them to work again. Sometimes they would mount but transfers failed after about 30 seconds. I pretty much did everything I could think of on three versions of OS X, Vista, and Ubuntu. I couldn’t get anything to bring them back.

@py_sue It’s terrible when it happens, but it also reminds us why backups are so necessary. For a couple of hundred dollars and the cost of four good-sized internal disk drives you could set up Windows Home Server on a dedicated appliance and have your data backed up transparently

If your computer “sees” the drive, try opening a terminal window and running checkdisk. Example: If your external hard drive is drive D:. you would choose Start, Run type “cmd” without the quotes, hit enter, and in the black window type “chkdsk D: /r /f” again without the quotes.

There’s not usually a tone, but if you mean that hum when it starts up. Then yes, there’s a tone. I’m not sure about format. I’ve never changed it from when I got it. I don’t have Spyware Doctor installed. My internet protection is through Windows Security Essentials.

With Windows, when you plug in a USB device it should make a noise. Like a “dee-dum” type noise. If you’re not hearing that, then it sounds like Windows isn’t recognizing a device being connected to your USB port. Have you tried different USB ports?

If it can’t open the drive for direct access, schedule a checkdisk using “Tools” on the “Properties” tag for the drive, select “Fix Errors” and “Check for bad Sectors”. and it will schedule a boot-time check.

If it’s any consolation I have exactly the same problem with my WD external hard drive. Sometimes it is recognised and I can save files onto it but mostly my PC with Windows 7 doesn’t seem to know it is there.

PS I also had issues with my PC taking ages to boot up when I forgot to disconnect the hard drive. I think my PC was trying to boot up from the external hard drive.